Steven Finn
The inspiration for this article came in the frequent collisions between the England fast bowler Finn's knee and the stumps, which have cost him a couple of wickets in the past year, originally after Graeme Smith complained that the habit was distracting. The umpires started to call dead ball when it happened, but that occasionally penalised the batsmen too: now a rule change means that no-ball will be called, meaning the batsman can still score runs but can't be out. Finn, who has worked over the winter to try to iron out the flaw, isn't too worried: "As long as it's named after me I don't mind!"

Thomas White
One of the most rapid rule changes happened in 1771 after White of Reigate - not for nothing known as "Shock" - came out to the crease with a bat as wide as the stumps, which meant he was exceedingly unlikely to get bowled out. The Hambledon club, the game's pre-eminent organisation at the time, passed an immediate rule restricting the width to 4¼ inches, which remains the limit today. In a humorous incident in 1884, WG Grace suspected that some of the bats being used by the Australian tourists were too wide, and asked for them to be measured. They were found to be fine - but when one of WG's own blades was tested, in a tit-for-tat measure, it turned out to be too big.

Dennis Lillee
Sticking with bats, in 1979-80, Lillee famously went out in a Test against England in Perth with an aluminium one. After a few clunks of leather on metal, England's captain, Mike Brearley, complained that the ball was being damaged, and Lillee was ordered to change the bat - which he eventually did, after a rather theatrical argument with his captain (Lillee had an interest in the company that made the "ComBat"). Not long afterwards, MCC issued a new redraft of the Laws, one of which stated that the bat had to be made of wood.

Muttiah Muralitharan
Murali's wrist-popping bowling action has inspired millions of words and, it seems, almost as many biometric tests, during which the elbow he was suspected of flexing was sometimes encased in plaster. The upshot of all the electronic wizardry was that the ICC was forced to reconsider the rules about throwing, since the findings showed that almost all bowlers bend their elbow - previously considered to be the sign of a thrower - to some degree. An arbitrary limit of 15 degrees of elbow flex, beyond which the bending is apparently obvious to the naked eye, was introduced.

Harold Larwood
One of the upshots of the bad-tempered 1932-33 Bodyline series - in which the England fast bowlers sent down persistent bouncers, with a packed leg-side field - was an eventual restriction of the number of fielders on that side of the wicket (only two are allowed behind square now, and for a while no more than five were permitted in total). It's a bit unfair to name and shame Larwood for this - he was following his captain's instructions, and was fast enough (and accurate enough) to make the tactic work.

Lumpy Stevens
In the earliest days of organised cricket there were only two stumps, six inches apart. Stevens, from Woking, was one of the earliest star bowlers, helped by the fact that the first official set of laws, in 1744, allowed the fielding side to choose exactly where they wanted to mark out the pitch, within a 30-yard area. Stevens got his nickname from his habit of selecting a handy undulation to bowl over: a contemporary poem explained that "Honest Lumpy did allow/He could not pitch but o'er a brow." But Lumpy was deadly accurate, and in 1775 whistled three balls in quick succession between a noted batsman's stumps without dislodging the single bail. A middle stump was added shortly afterwards.

Mike Brearley
One of the most innovative of captains, Brearley once stationed all his fielders - including the wicketkeeper, David Bairstow - on the boundary in the closing stages of a one-day international, making it almost impossible to score more than a single from any particular delivery. Soon afterwards fielding circles - already a familiar sight in Australian domestic cricket - were made mandatory in international games too, ensuring that a certain number of fielders would be closer in. Brearley was also among the first to try a form of batting helmet, protecting his temples with a sort of skull-cap before full helmets became the norm around 1980.

Phil Edmonds
In concert with his Middlesex captain Brearley (above), Edmonds devised a scheme to entrap some docile Yorkshire batsmen in a county match at Lord's in 1980. They placed a spare fielding helmet on the ground at short midwicket, to try to tempt the striker to play across the line to Edmonds' left-arm spin in order to collect the five penalty runs he would receive if the ball hit the helmet. Shortly afterwards the regulations were amended so the spare helmet could only be parked behind the wicketkeeper.

John Willes
In cricket's early days all the bowling was underarm, but this kept the pace of the ball down. Willes, from Kent, was one of several who began experimenting with a more roundarm delivery - suggested to him, legend has it, when his sister found it impossible to bowl properly because of her voluminous skirts (although this idea is generally discounted now). In 1822, Willes used his "new" method in a match at Lord's and was no-balled: according to the historian HS Altham, he "threw the ball down in disgust, jumped on his horse, and rode away out of Lord's and out of cricket history". However, the method soon won widespread acceptance - and eventually bowling with the hand above the shoulder was accepted too.

Ray Lindwall
For years some fast bowlers had planted their back foot behind the crease but dragged it through and over the line. The no-ball law at the time allowed this, with the result that some bowlers were releasing the ball rather closer to the batsman than the prescribed 22 yards. It became almost an epidemic in the 1950s: Lindwall, the great Australian fast bowler, was by no means the only offender - but he was probably the most famous one. In the 1958-59 Ashes series the problem was compounded by some of the Aussie pacemen having suspect actions as well (not Lindwall, who jokingly described himself around this time as the last of the straight-arm bowlers). The giant Gordon Rorke, for example, dragged through the crease then let go what the English batsmen of the time considered to be blatant chucks. Eventually the law was changed so the front foot had to land behind the line: Don Bradman and Richie Benaud were vehement opponents of the change, but it remains in force today.

Wells and Shine
When the follow-on was first introduced, in 1835, it was compulsory if a side was a certain number of runs behind on first innings (originally 100 in a three-day game, but reduced to 80 in 1854). Occasionally, a team didn't really want to bowl again straightaway and resorted to giving away runs to let the opposition scrape past the follow-on score. In 1893, Cambridge's CM Wells bowled two deliberate wides to the boundary to ensure Oxford would not have to follow on in the Varsity Match at Lord's, and in the same fixture three years later EB Shine of Cambridge deliberately bowled three balls straight to the boundary. In 1900 MCC made the follow-on optional.

Steven Lynch is the editor of the Wisden Guide to International Cricket 2013

KP's switch-hit created changes to law, whereby batsman can be out LBW to ball pitching outside leg. Botha's great catch of a ball going for 6 (swiped it back into play with feet off ground, and then ran onto pitch to take catch) changed rule to say this is OUT.

POSTED BY
Pelham_Barton
on | April 16, 2013, 7:45 GMT

With regard to the ten men on the boundary, Mike Brearley got the idea from Warwickshire's Mike Smith. In a John Player League match in 1972, Middlesex needed four to win off the last ball and Smith placed ten men on the boundary. Brearley was non-strking batsman at the time. The striker Keith Jones scored two so Warwickshire won by one run. I was there, but am not relying on fickle memory: the details can be verified in the match report on page 688 of the 1973 Wisden. In his book "The Art of Captaincy" Brearley mentioned Ted Dexter's willingness to change from traditional field placings and then said "I was struck by M. J. K. Smith's willingness to follow through this policy to what seems to me to be a perfectly logical conclusion when in 1972 he put the wicket-keeper on the boundary for the last ball of a limited-overs match" (pp 202-203 in the original 1985 edition o rp. 206 of the 2006 paperback).

POSTED BY
Rowayton
on | April 16, 2013, 3:51 GMT

The no ball one is interesting - I have a picture somewhere of Lindwall about two feet past the back line, so that his front foot would be at least that far past the front line, and the ball is still in his hand.
And the David Hookes reminiscences - not a law change, but... Is Hookesy the only captain in history to send a side in and then not take a single wicket in the whole day? Marsh and Veletta were the batsmen I recall. Gives unfortunate decision a whole new meaning.

POSTED BY
Mad_Hamish
on | April 16, 2013, 1:33 GMT

@jackthelad
You're wrong.
The bodyline series wasn't nothing but bouncers and even when the bodyline field was set there were some non-bouncers bowled but there's enough footage of the series to clearly show that there were a lot of bouncers being bowled.
If a bowler was bowling consistantly at hip or waist height they would not be able to keep the short legs in place because after the first 3 or 4 got taken to hospital after being hit by pull shots nobody else would be going in there...
(and if you thing Vic Richardson, Stan McCabe & Don Bradman couldn't hit pull shots you really don't know much about cricket)

POSTED BY
Mad_Hamish
on | April 16, 2013, 1:29 GMT

@gundapps
It's actually gone the other way.
Originally you could only be out lbw if the ball pitched in line and hit in line (or presumably hit in line struck on the full)
Then in the 30s it was shifted so that you could be out to a ball pitching outside off if it struck in line with the crease and at a later stage it was changed to the current condition.
The ball pitching outside leg stump has never been meant to be given out, presumably because the feel is that it gives too much encouragement to negative bowling (I remember the screams when an English left armer - Ashley Giles iirc - was bowling outside leg to Tendulkar to keep him quiet)
As for 3. I believe that at times the umpires have been instructed to give people out more aggressively if they're consistently using pad play rather than use the bat.

POSTED BY
Mad_Hamish
on | April 16, 2013, 1:24 GMT

@ForwardDefensive
You're pretty much right. The leg side fielding restrictions were brought in to combat defensive leg-side bowling (largely offspin to a packed leg-side field or inswingers to a packed leg-side field).
There way have been agreements in some matches and series before that but it's definitely true that they were brought into the laws more than 20 years after bodyline.
I believe the intimidatory bowling law was introduced as a response to bodyline, first as an addition in international and first class matches and then to the laws of the game.

POSTED BY
on | April 15, 2013, 23:28 GMT

Vinoo Mankad 's name is missed -after all doing a Mankad ' has become part of the cricketing vocabulary!

POSTED BY
Kapil_Choudhary
on | April 15, 2013, 16:18 GMT

That helmet behind the stumps only restriction needs to be removed. If a fielding captain wants to challenge the batsman by placing a spare helmet at some place where it is hittable by the batsman - then why not let him???

Only one slight quibble with this otherwise extremely interesting and well-researched article: Harold Larwood did NOT bowl 'bouncers', he bowled very fast and very accurate balls on the line of the leg stump, which generally rose to the level of the hip or waist of a batsman; batsmen were hit if they weren't good enough to play the ball - but there was only one incident of a head blow in the Bodyline series, and that was the result of a snick off the bat.

POSTED BY
R_U_4_REAL_NICK
on | April 17, 2013, 13:54 GMT

KP's switch-hit created changes to law, whereby batsman can be out LBW to ball pitching outside leg. Botha's great catch of a ball going for 6 (swiped it back into play with feet off ground, and then ran onto pitch to take catch) changed rule to say this is OUT.

POSTED BY
Pelham_Barton
on | April 16, 2013, 7:45 GMT

With regard to the ten men on the boundary, Mike Brearley got the idea from Warwickshire's Mike Smith. In a John Player League match in 1972, Middlesex needed four to win off the last ball and Smith placed ten men on the boundary. Brearley was non-strking batsman at the time. The striker Keith Jones scored two so Warwickshire won by one run. I was there, but am not relying on fickle memory: the details can be verified in the match report on page 688 of the 1973 Wisden. In his book "The Art of Captaincy" Brearley mentioned Ted Dexter's willingness to change from traditional field placings and then said "I was struck by M. J. K. Smith's willingness to follow through this policy to what seems to me to be a perfectly logical conclusion when in 1972 he put the wicket-keeper on the boundary for the last ball of a limited-overs match" (pp 202-203 in the original 1985 edition o rp. 206 of the 2006 paperback).

POSTED BY
Rowayton
on | April 16, 2013, 3:51 GMT

The no ball one is interesting - I have a picture somewhere of Lindwall about two feet past the back line, so that his front foot would be at least that far past the front line, and the ball is still in his hand.
And the David Hookes reminiscences - not a law change, but... Is Hookesy the only captain in history to send a side in and then not take a single wicket in the whole day? Marsh and Veletta were the batsmen I recall. Gives unfortunate decision a whole new meaning.

POSTED BY
Mad_Hamish
on | April 16, 2013, 1:33 GMT

@jackthelad
You're wrong.
The bodyline series wasn't nothing but bouncers and even when the bodyline field was set there were some non-bouncers bowled but there's enough footage of the series to clearly show that there were a lot of bouncers being bowled.
If a bowler was bowling consistantly at hip or waist height they would not be able to keep the short legs in place because after the first 3 or 4 got taken to hospital after being hit by pull shots nobody else would be going in there...
(and if you thing Vic Richardson, Stan McCabe & Don Bradman couldn't hit pull shots you really don't know much about cricket)

POSTED BY
Mad_Hamish
on | April 16, 2013, 1:29 GMT

@gundapps
It's actually gone the other way.
Originally you could only be out lbw if the ball pitched in line and hit in line (or presumably hit in line struck on the full)
Then in the 30s it was shifted so that you could be out to a ball pitching outside off if it struck in line with the crease and at a later stage it was changed to the current condition.
The ball pitching outside leg stump has never been meant to be given out, presumably because the feel is that it gives too much encouragement to negative bowling (I remember the screams when an English left armer - Ashley Giles iirc - was bowling outside leg to Tendulkar to keep him quiet)
As for 3. I believe that at times the umpires have been instructed to give people out more aggressively if they're consistently using pad play rather than use the bat.

POSTED BY
Mad_Hamish
on | April 16, 2013, 1:24 GMT

@ForwardDefensive
You're pretty much right. The leg side fielding restrictions were brought in to combat defensive leg-side bowling (largely offspin to a packed leg-side field or inswingers to a packed leg-side field).
There way have been agreements in some matches and series before that but it's definitely true that they were brought into the laws more than 20 years after bodyline.
I believe the intimidatory bowling law was introduced as a response to bodyline, first as an addition in international and first class matches and then to the laws of the game.

POSTED BY
on | April 15, 2013, 23:28 GMT

Vinoo Mankad 's name is missed -after all doing a Mankad ' has become part of the cricketing vocabulary!

POSTED BY
Kapil_Choudhary
on | April 15, 2013, 16:18 GMT

That helmet behind the stumps only restriction needs to be removed. If a fielding captain wants to challenge the batsman by placing a spare helmet at some place where it is hittable by the batsman - then why not let him???

Only one slight quibble with this otherwise extremely interesting and well-researched article: Harold Larwood did NOT bowl 'bouncers', he bowled very fast and very accurate balls on the line of the leg stump, which generally rose to the level of the hip or waist of a batsman; batsmen were hit if they weren't good enough to play the ball - but there was only one incident of a head blow in the Bodyline series, and that was the result of a snick off the bat.

POSTED BY
on | April 15, 2013, 12:34 GMT

David Hookes deserves a mention here. I understand that once, batting with the tail, he devised the trick of running halfway up the pitch, crossing, and running back, scoring two runs, minus one for a short run - thereby running a single and keeping the strike. I think that the rules on short runs were promptly changed so that an honest attempt to complete the run must be made. I'd be delighted for factual confirmation of this.

Another quasi-legal ploy from Hookes which did not result in a rule change - he noticed once that Dean Jones was batting outside his crease. He had bowler Andrew Zesers bowl directly to him at second slip and threw down the stumps.

POSTED BY
gundapps
on | April 15, 2013, 12:34 GMT

Anybody know when and why following changes in the lbw rule was brought about:
1. Not out if ball is pitched outside leg stump
2. Not out if struck outside line of off stump
3. Given out on intentional padding at umpire's disretion

POSTED BY
HighwayToHell
on | April 15, 2013, 12:10 GMT

They need to change the rules and not allow batsmen to use the bails to mark their guard. Chanderpaul started this and now every other West Indian does it.

POSTED BY
Billy_Hubble
on | April 15, 2013, 12:01 GMT

Interesting article. Surprising no mention for Brian Rose who declared at 0 for 0 in a group match of a one day tournament to avoid a worsening of Somerset's net run rate and guaranteeing progress to the next stages. This led to the withdrawal of the right to declare in one-day cricket.

POSTED BY
R_U_4_REAL_NICK
on | April 15, 2013, 11:47 GMT

There's so many more modern examples missing. How about KP's switch hit, which led to changes in the laws regarding LBW (i.e. switching the hands from right-hander to left-hander means you can be out LBW to a ball pitching outside leg-stump). How about [was it Botha?] wonderful piece of fielding during a T20 where a ball which was going for 6 was intercepted by the fielder over the rope, and he threw the ball back into play before his feet touched the ground outside the rope, before running back onto the pitch to complete the catch! New laws written to accept this is batsman OUT instead of a 6.

POSTED BY
DaveMorton
on | April 15, 2013, 11:18 GMT

The legside fielding restrictions were NOT introduced following Bodyline, as the article states, but many years later, after the 1955 S African tourists to England used a much slower leg theory attack, left-arm medium pacer Goddard bowling over the wicket to a packed legside field. The Australians were also in favour, to limit Laker's effectiveness. In 1956 he was able to bowl offspin with two backward short-legs and a man on the sweep behind them, three behind square in total. I'm not sure when the Law-change was actually made - but after that, obviously.

POSTED BY
on | April 15, 2013, 10:47 GMT

Shane Warne got the LBW law changed around a ball hitting the batsman on the full is projected to be going straight on its present line.

POSTED BY
Jonathan_E
on | April 15, 2013, 10:10 GMT

Krupal - "Mankading" is NOT the official name of the dismissal, nor have the laws been changed to specifically allow or prevent it.

POSTED BY
on | April 15, 2013, 8:52 GMT

James Mark. Law 24 (1)(b) Underarm bowling shall not be permitted except by special agreement before the match.

POSTED BY
on | April 15, 2013, 8:27 GMT

What about Vinoo Mankad? I believe there's a dismissal named after him "mankeded".

POSTED BY
on | April 15, 2013, 8:06 GMT

Bowling underarm does not breach any laws within cricket.

POSTED BY
on | April 15, 2013, 7:57 GMT

I'm glad this article stated that it was NOT murali that forced the law changes, but the result of ICC findings on lots of bowlers. Some people think Murali caused the change himself! Switch hit - KP; catches outside the boundary but when you are airborne. Also check the Sunday Times from yesterday (14 April); I wrote an article in the sports letters section about overthrows.

POSTED BY
John-Price
on | April 15, 2013, 7:55 GMT

@ Rally_Windies - the LBW alteration you refer to was made in 1970 - long before Jimmy Adams.

POSTED BY
Hoggy_1989
on | April 15, 2013, 7:48 GMT

The underarm incident is the most obviously and clearly was ignored to give more column space to some more interesting and obscure rules. And besides, at the time of the underarm incident, it was banned in all other parts of the cricketing world; but the Australian lawmakers for the series they were playing in at the time (before the days of the ICC's creation and when MCC still ran things)...so it was all a bit slip-shod.

POSTED BY
mrgupta
on | April 15, 2013, 7:42 GMT

Very interesting article. Very Good info about the early days of Cricket. Nice reading.

POSTED BY
TrentJSteel
on | April 15, 2013, 7:40 GMT

Chappell's underarm isn't on the list?!?! A well publicized example of a knee -jerk law change if there was ever one.

POSTED BY
on | April 15, 2013, 3:41 GMT

... and then of course there's Greg Chappell, whose instruction to his brother Trevor to bowl underarm in a ODI against New Zealand in 1981 led to the banning of underarm bowling in limited-over internationals.

POSTED BY
on | April 15, 2013, 3:35 GMT

I think David Hookes caused the short-run rule to be changed. While batting with a tail-ender one day, he wanted to retain the strike, so he would run half-way down the pitch, crossing with the other batsmen, then both would return to the end they started. Because they crossed, it was given as a single with a short-run. That way, Hookes retained the strike without having to hit boundaries or twos.

POSTED BY
Rally_Windies
on | April 15, 2013, 3:24 GMT

You forgot Jimmy Paddams (i mean Adams) ..

they changed the law to allow LBW if hit outside the line of the stumps IF you are not offering a shot ....

Because of Jimmy....and his padding tactic .....

after 12 Tests the guy was ranked 1 in the world in test Cricket and had an average of 88 ...

POSTED BY
WalkingWicket11
on | April 15, 2013, 3:11 GMT

It is amazing how the article mentions the "overarm" incident, but excludes the underarm incident.

Also, with Brearley's tactic of pushing all fielders to the boundary, it is not "almost impossible" to score more than one run. The batsman just have to tap the ball far enough from the bowler (but within what is now called "infield"), and they can run at least two. Moreover, with no one to collect the throw at either end, the risk of getting run out is significantly reduced. If the bowler attempts a direct hit and misses, there are more runs to be scored.

No featured comments at the moment.

POSTED BY
WalkingWicket11
on | April 15, 2013, 3:11 GMT

It is amazing how the article mentions the "overarm" incident, but excludes the underarm incident.

Also, with Brearley's tactic of pushing all fielders to the boundary, it is not "almost impossible" to score more than one run. The batsman just have to tap the ball far enough from the bowler (but within what is now called "infield"), and they can run at least two. Moreover, with no one to collect the throw at either end, the risk of getting run out is significantly reduced. If the bowler attempts a direct hit and misses, there are more runs to be scored.

POSTED BY
Rally_Windies
on | April 15, 2013, 3:24 GMT

You forgot Jimmy Paddams (i mean Adams) ..

they changed the law to allow LBW if hit outside the line of the stumps IF you are not offering a shot ....

Because of Jimmy....and his padding tactic .....

after 12 Tests the guy was ranked 1 in the world in test Cricket and had an average of 88 ...

POSTED BY
on | April 15, 2013, 3:35 GMT

I think David Hookes caused the short-run rule to be changed. While batting with a tail-ender one day, he wanted to retain the strike, so he would run half-way down the pitch, crossing with the other batsmen, then both would return to the end they started. Because they crossed, it was given as a single with a short-run. That way, Hookes retained the strike without having to hit boundaries or twos.

POSTED BY
on | April 15, 2013, 3:41 GMT

... and then of course there's Greg Chappell, whose instruction to his brother Trevor to bowl underarm in a ODI against New Zealand in 1981 led to the banning of underarm bowling in limited-over internationals.

POSTED BY
TrentJSteel
on | April 15, 2013, 7:40 GMT

Chappell's underarm isn't on the list?!?! A well publicized example of a knee -jerk law change if there was ever one.

POSTED BY
mrgupta
on | April 15, 2013, 7:42 GMT

Very interesting article. Very Good info about the early days of Cricket. Nice reading.

POSTED BY
Hoggy_1989
on | April 15, 2013, 7:48 GMT

The underarm incident is the most obviously and clearly was ignored to give more column space to some more interesting and obscure rules. And besides, at the time of the underarm incident, it was banned in all other parts of the cricketing world; but the Australian lawmakers for the series they were playing in at the time (before the days of the ICC's creation and when MCC still ran things)...so it was all a bit slip-shod.

POSTED BY
John-Price
on | April 15, 2013, 7:55 GMT

@ Rally_Windies - the LBW alteration you refer to was made in 1970 - long before Jimmy Adams.

POSTED BY
on | April 15, 2013, 7:57 GMT

I'm glad this article stated that it was NOT murali that forced the law changes, but the result of ICC findings on lots of bowlers. Some people think Murali caused the change himself! Switch hit - KP; catches outside the boundary but when you are airborne. Also check the Sunday Times from yesterday (14 April); I wrote an article in the sports letters section about overthrows.